Well, let me back track a little. I responded to GA but now had more time to think about it. And, I will change my post to 94 to 95 is that "Distance" more than 95 to 96 (to me) or @ least = to.

I have a real problem with 96+, thought, still. I mentioned that before.

This is a quote from a seminar I attended with Grant Edmonds, Gordon Russel, John Hancock, James Haliday and a number of other notaries speaking over a couple of days. Sadly I've only got the topic of the seminar not who said this but it was one of these three- Grant Edmonds, John Hancock or Haliday. The topic was"The process of Judging-how relevant is it today for defining wine quality?"

" The idea that wine can be given a numerical rating is as misunderstood as chaos theoreum mathematics. The mere thought that a wine can merit a single score is almost ridiculous in process as it is in practice. The more accurate we try to define a wine the less accurately we judge it for the most important people in the business-the consumer. The process of defining wine under a twenty point system started many years ago and became standard practice, this was followed by Parker 100 point system. In truth neither is truely accurate, unless of coarse you have a million judges expirienced and otherwise and then just average the score out. So again it is impractical, purely for necesary numbers. So how does the system truely work? It is a comparison of the persons previous expiriences in tasting and drinking wine compared to the wine placed before them, guided by a easy set of rules which define "classic" wine. They are easy only once you understand how, what and why the wine was made. Until that moment it is as easy as walking through London Fog, possible but you stumble alot along the way.
Personally when I judge I allocate stars. Technically this means 19 points or above for gold, 17-18 for silver and 15-16 for bronze.
In truth we get all the wines together after tasting them and divide them in levels of quality irrelevant of score. The categories are- medal winers and non medal winers. This is divided further into Gold SIlver and Bronze and left at that. The only score allocated is a pass or fail in truth."

I'm not sure if I agree or disagre with this qoute (1998 NZ trade Fair) but either way it is interesting.

Well, I choose to remain in accord on some issues, but skeptical on others.

The real experiment has not been performed. We never evaluate double blinded. If we know we're drinking previously rated 90-95 pt wines, who would volunteer an 85 in the crowd? If someone we admire says it's a 95, how willing are we to significantly disagree?

A better scenario would be:
1-Take 30 unknown similar varietal wines, of varying quality, taste them blind in glass, rate them. Wait 15 minutes. Mix up order. Rate them again. Do a third and fourth time. This tests for accuracy, for reproducibility. Did the Whitehall get a 90 (or whatever your number) each time? The order of all these should also be the same each time. I could easily foresee many here off by 3 or so pts range between tastings.

2-Take same 30 wines, taste them blind in glass, rate them. Compare to Parker or whomever you consider the best. How close are you to him? This tests for precision, for validity. I he is truth, how far off are you?

There are those that do it better, no doubt; however, I think there are few that would do as well as they think they would, skills and egos nothwithstanding. Unlike a yardstick that measures 36" every time, in wine tasting "truth" from ratings is much more nebulous. The acknowledged published experts have shown this to us when they've been subjected to real rigorous testing environments. If we really look into ourselves (and even some of our posts here), one can only realize that this ratings and average stuff is quite subjective.

I'm willing to accept this. More important, I know how to operate appropriately upon this data. jb's 92, ojeffso's 90, and lcc's 94, tell me that they ALL think the wine is excellent whether it is a 90 or a 94. From their descriptors and the price, if I haven't tried it yet, I have good enough infomation to make a decision.

Again, great topic for debate

"If we know we're drinking previously rated 90-95 pt wines, who would volunteer an 85 in the crowd? If someone we admire says it's a 95, how willing are we to significantly disagree?"

I would on both counts. The only question would be delivery. Herd mentality and group think does not afflict everyone equally. Expressing ones views on a subject (wine, politics, law, the Knicks) and then standing by them is not evidence of an over sized ego merely intestinal fortitude.

Subjective is not synonomous with "Wrong".

Who are the acknowledged experts and how does anyone know when someone is an expert?

I pick a number, taste more wine, debate with myself (and perhaps others), taste more wine, and then write a number down. Later, I then continue to think about the number, debate more with myself, and then sometimes change the number. Dr. T thinks the number is BS because no one can reliably and accurately tell the difference between a 85 point and a 90 point wine plus tasting wine is subjective. I disagree.

jones-tasting wine for you may not be subjective, but for others it definitely is. how else could one explain the 10-15 point differences when "professionals" rate the same wines?

as someone has said previously, "average" for people who truly appreciate fine wine is by no means a true "average" wine, if that is something in the 70-80 point range. frankly, something that rates below 85 loses my interest & participation in a hurry. if i taste something i deem less than 80, i'm ready immediately to open another bottle or switch to beer or iced tea. i guess this truly leaves me a compressed scoring range, especially since i have no capacity or desire to score wine below the 80 point threshold. i suppose there is much wine below my drinking tolerance level, but i choose to avoid it. i read reviews from the experts, including those i respect on this forum & that other one & make my purchase & drinking selections accordingly. should what i call an 80 point wine be recalibrated to 70 points? i don't think so, since my impressions seem to align, generally, with the "experts".

i guess this means my experience with truly bad wine is as limited, or more limited, than my experience with truly exceptional wine. i have a ws 100 point wine in my cellar that i am dying to drink & i suppose i could make the excuse that i need to for the purpose of scientific palette calibration. alas, i cannot since it needs at least a couple of years yet. so perhaps i should just get a box of white zin, a pint of md 20/20 & a mixed case of severely panned "fine" wines & work on my experience in the lower end of the spectrum........ nah.

When it comes to wines, I don't think I will ever be able to rate them as well as many of you here. I can remember certain aromas and tastes, but I have trouble describing them, which makes it more difficult to catagorize and compare them. Whenever I'm in a blind tasting of similar wines, I have to try all the wines 2 or 3 times before I can even find differences between any of them. Fortunately, after 4-5 times, I can distinguish them better. I envy the person who can immediately tell the differences.

I do believe that if one has the skills and the talent, that they can dissect a wine very precisely. Someone like Parker who claims to remember every wine he has tasted obviously has skills that I can only dream about. But anyone that has worked hard to refine a skill and has the talent to take it to the highest level can appreciate the beauty of this. In tennis, it's when one is in a "zone" where one can see a 120 mph serve is coming at you in slow motion. Or in bridge when you, your partner and your opponents are so tuned in and calibrated that you "know" what everyone has in his hand from the bidding.

I don't think that "professionals" who rate wines are nearly as good at what they do as people who judge other things. For one thing, there is usually much more competition to become a judge of other things. A major league umpire spends 15-20 years working on their craft and get scrutinized and evaluated by thousands (if not millions of people). If James Laube were an umpire, he would still be umping in high school.

To be very honest, I don't think most of them are worth listening to. Because of that, I prefer to read as much as I can and listen to some of the people here and the Parker BB.

GATC, thank you. I've been saying the same for years NOW (I prefer to read as much as I can and listen to some of the people here ... + Wino friends that I trust).

From day 1, of my brother's intro to the World of Wine & Collecting/Enjoying + to me (a few years later), we NEVER EVER bought a Wine (well, almost Never) based on Ratings or Parker or WS alone. I mentioned this before, between the 2 of us (about 2,200 bottles). If 50 of those were purchased based on Rating alone, then I am lying like a rug. With all the GREAT Posts on this Topic, you summed it up, very well, again.

I keep a separate document about recommended Wines (WS, Parker, Enthusiast, & HERE) for reference when in Store. Or, @ least I used to. I edited the doc about a week ago to ONLY include Wine(s) that are recommended HERE & my "other" Wino-friends (that I have know for years). True story.

GATC,
Thanks for the 'confession'. I too often find it difficult to distinguish between different wines. I usually blame it on my poor sense of smell, but fot whatever reason, it takes me a long time to detect certain nuances in a particular vintage. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

LCC,
I used to buy more often based on magazine/online ratings (especially for good QPR) than I do now. I find myself looking at tasting notes from the 'amateurs' on the fora (both here and on the 'old' board). How else would I have gotten all of the 99 Whitehall Lane I did. WS didn't rate it for months after release. Ditto on Shafer Napa, Phelps Napa, Showhet, and a number of other cabs, to say nothing about Paringa, Killibinbin, and MP offerings.
Youse guys (see 'wine mafia' thread) are more of a positive influence on me than the pros.
I owe JB big time for several of his Kistler reviews. I'm now the proud owner of at least 2 of his raves!!!

Sorry, that was poor drafting on my part. As I have stated multiple times in prior posts, wine tasting is subjective. However, despite its subjectivity I believe that there are a considerable amount of accepted opinions which constitute absolutes or reasonable copies of same (as JimmyV already wrote of before).

Excellent points GATC but I don't think you give yourself enough credit.

Jones is right, GATC. You are more adept at this than you give yourself credit.

budman, I sure do hope you enjoy those wines. Buying on the say so of me... I'll I can say is I enjoyed them immensely. Hopefully, they agree w/ your tastes as well.

jb

Thanks. If I don't pick out the Australian riesling from the 5 German rieslings Sunday, I'm in trouble.

I want to expand on a point that I made earlier about people who evaluate wines. A lot of the people who evaluate wines are also the ones who write about them. What gets a lot of these people to the top is their writing skills, not necessarily their wine evaluation skills. In most cases, the people who can evaluate wine the best have professions in another field. It is very difficult for the best wine evaluators to get into the profession of evaluating wines for a living - it doesn't pay well enough. Therefore, I believe that the wine evaluators who are published the most are often the ones selected for their writing skills, not their wine evaluating skills. I don't know how well my theory holds up, but there has to be some explanation of why some wine writers who write beautifully can't judge wines worth beans.

gatc-you are correct. the spectator is a perfect example. most of those guys started off as journalists. a few others started off as fiends of marvin.

Holly Molly...GATC/ojeffso: Is that RIGHT??? Are you kidding me??? Are you sure about that or you guys are assuming/guessing?

...If it is true, then I am shocked & a little disappointed. NO. A LOT disappointed. And, all this time I thought that they were "trained"-for lack of a better word, to be Wine critics/"experts". I am...(without words)...if that is true.

But, on the other hand...I made the point MANY times that I NEVER followed Ratings very closely & preferred to follow recommendations of people (Wine people) that I respect & have similar taste with... And, I made the point that I follow TNs/recommendations from people of this Community more than WS/WA/WE.

…So, if the 2 of you are correct (& are Not just making assumptions) then I had the correct approach to this (even w/o realizing this).

WOW. This is the 1st time I ever hear something like this.

HOW ABOUT Parker???

By vocation, Parker was a lawyer.

I think he got started by selling an article about a trip to the vineyards of France, wrote increasingly frequently, and eventually gave up his law career to devote himself fully to wine writing.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

I guess this mean there's still hope for all of US!

How does 1 become, then, a Wine Critic/Reviewer/"Expert"? I drink a good amount of Wine. We ALL do. We are NOT. Why is Laube, Parker, & Co.? How did they become...

I hope that, @ least, some of these guys have some sort of "training". Or, as ojeffso says, nepotism. Or, luck?

LCC, starting writing tasting notes. If folks like them and recommend your notes to others you are well on the way. Wether you can actually make money at it is another question entirely. I'm sure Jones would start doing it but he wouldn't be able to afford to drink the wine he does if he quit his "day job". From my calculations Parker should be doing pretty good (40,000 subscriptions at $100 each is $4M revenue and I can't see his enpenses being more than about $2M). So there is money to be made, but RP is at the top of the pyramid and I doubt anyone else makes anywhere near that much.

The full range is required to provide an adequate spread of points. Letter grades would be hard, as how do you argue a B+ is close to the equivalent A-

My average wine is 80 -85, My good is 86-90, very good 91-95
Most of my cellar is above 86.

The good wines I serve to those that don't appreciate wine, or sitting on the patio.